Easter incorruption

Listen to the triumphant tunes of the Church! Not only on the days of Holy Easter, but on all the great holidays you will repeatedly hear the word: incorruption. The entire work of saving the human race in the church's living theology is depicted as the gift of incorruptibility. This means that we lacked incorruptibility. We were in a state of decay. The Synaxarion on the Holy and Great Week of Easter, of course, is read only in monasteries, and even then not in all. Meanwhile, here is how the theological meaning of the celebrated event is defined there: “On that [day] he came down from heaven and dwelt in the womb of the Virgin; and now, having snatched away everything from the treasures of hell, human nature has been raised to heaven and brought to the ancient property of incorruption.” Two details are remarkable here: Easter is placed next to the event of the Nativity of Christ and incorruption is called an ancient heritage. Listening to church hymns, you become more and more convinced of what ideological treasures they are rich in, how important they are for a true Orthodox understanding of life. Our school courses in dogmatics, taught from seminaries and academic departments, in this respect stand immeasurably lower than the theology that our sextons and choristers teach believers from the church choir. Easter incorruptibility... Ancient heritage has been returned... Our school theology speaks of some kind of legal settlements between God and man. Sin is primarily called a crime against God, an insult to God, for which the truth of God must take revenge on the insignificant offender. But the Church calls sin, first of all, corruption, the loss of an ancient property - incorruption. There are no legal accounts with the Lord God here. Man fell away from God, and his spiritual and physical decay began. Self-law in spiritual life led to slavery to sin and passions. Man began to decay in deceitful lusts. The soul rots, the soul decays. It sounds strange, but it's actually true. The process of spiritual decay can be likened to any rotting. If an organism rots, everything in it is destroyed, and at times poisonous and foul-smelling gases emerge from it. Likewise, the spiritual nature, damaged and infected by sin, seems to rot. The soul loses its chastity, its integrity, and decays; The will in her weakens, binding everything and subordinating everything in her. Constant passionate thoughts and evil deeds burst out of the sinful soul. With an attentive attitude to his spiritual life, every person cannot help but be surprised at how difficult it is to instill in the soul everything good and beautiful and how easily and quickly everything dark and evil takes root in it. Shall we therefore say: something evil lives in our soul; she is unwell, sick. Corruption reigns in our soul, and our body is especially obviously subject to corruption. Many may not notice mental illness; they may drown out the internal groans and cries of the soul with the noise of life. But the decay of the body in death is irrefutable. And before this decay every color of life pales. The works of ascetics that treat spiritual death can be rejected and, perhaps, even ridiculed. But find a nihilist who would not understand the order of burial and funeral lamentation of St. John of Damascus! Humanity has always seen the internal decay of its spiritual nature and has always seen with its own eyes the destruction of the church of the body. To realize that you are spiritually rotting, and to know that your body is the property of worms - this is the lot of a sinful person! Where is the joy here? What to hope for in the future? Sin in its essence is associated with unhappiness and suffering. Sinful consciousness and the future painted gloomy, bleak colors. The Sheol of the Jew, the kingdom of shadows in the gloomy Hades of the Hellenic and Roman, is a bleak future. Salvation is healing. Salvation is liberation from corruption. Salvation is the return of the original goodness of incorruption, for man was created into incorruption. It was necessary to improve human nature. This healing was given in the incarnation of the Son of God. “We could not have become incorruptible and immortal if the Imperishable and Immortal had not first become what we are.” The Imperishable and Immortal One took into the unity of His personality “my former nature through corruption and death.” Corruptible nature received an incorruptibility graft, and the process of renewal of creation began, the process of the deification of man, and the creation of God-manhood began. The sting of death has been dulled. Corruption has been defeated, for the antidote to the disease of corruption has been given. Easter incorruptibility makes us remember the mystery of the incarnation. The gates of death were impassable. All earthly creatures invariably approached these gates and hid behind them, trembling and horrified. But Christ has risen! What does it mean? This means that salvation is truly accomplished. After all, human nature was united with the Divine nature in the person of Christ “unfused, unchangeable, inseparable, inseparable.” It was not God who passed through the gates of death, it was not before God that the palace of eternity was “opened”, it was not for God’s sake that the stone was rolled away from the door of the tomb, but for the sake of the God-man. Together with Christ, our human nature passed through the mysterious gates of death. Death reigns, but does not last forever! Death was terrible for the human race before the death of Christ, but after Christ’s resurrection man became terrible for death, for one of us conquered death, did not remain in the tomb and did not see corruption. Passover is the liberation of Israel from Egypt. Our Easter is liberation from the slavery of death and corruption. Christ is Risen! I know now that my salvation is truly complete. I know that God really appeared on earth. There were great people, conquerors of the elements, conquerors of nature, but the death of everyone was equal and revealed our common insignificance. Who is this who has passed through the gates of death? He can only be God. This means that God truly incarnated on earth, truly healing medicine was brought against the corruption that is corroding me and tormenting me. The Incarnation and the Resurrection go together. The Incarnation will give meaning to the resurrection, and the resurrection indisputably assures us of the truth, of reality, and not of the illusory and dreamy nature of the incarnation. Now I am not afraid of death, for I have seen victory over corruption. I still see in myself a different law than the law of life, I see the law of death and corruption. I see how sin dominates me at times. But I know that this dominance has been shaken, that my position is not hopeless. I can now hope for victory, for overcoming sin, I can hope for liberation from slavery to corruption. Now I can look with joy at the feat of struggle against sin and passions set before me, for the enemy has already been defeated many times over by selfless ascetics. In the church heaven, the saints of God shine like luminaries, who, while living on earth, conquered sin, achieved purity and chastity, that is, incorruptibility, and therefore, rejoicing, they set out on the path of the whole earth. Incorruptibility, that is, purity and chastity, gives joy. Bliss is not an external reward, as the unfortunate Catholic mercenaries philosophize. Bliss is the internal consequence of virtue. Virtue is the health of the soul, and a healthy person is always happier than a sick person. My sinful illness can be healed—Christ’s resurrection convinces me of this. The bliss of heaven is open to me. Let no one weep in misery, for the common Kingdom has appeared! General joy appeared, for there was hope for incorruption, for redemption from sinful corruption. Christ God has led us from death to life. Egypt is left behind, Pharaoh perished, ahead is the promised land and the incorruptible Kingdom, where there are many abodes, where there is eternal joy! Easter incorruptibility! Peace salvation! You might be interested in: